Posts by Russ Sanderlin
4th Annual World Wide Photowalk Announced October 1-2
If you are looking for a reason to use your camera for something else other than taking pictures of your family, dust off your camera lens and put your creative juices to work. Head over to http://worldwidephotowalk.com and sign up for the world’s largest photo event taking place in your area taking place on October 1st or 2nd. Spend the day with other photography enthusiasts and professionals gathering new tips, tricks and perspectives.
Last year, we met up for a walk organized in Downtown Sanford, Florida.
A photo walk is a social event where you will meet up with a group about 50 or less photography enthusiasts and professionals to talk new tips, tricks and perspectives by walking around the location taking pictures. At the conclusion of the photo walk session the group gathers up as a restaurant to compare the results. If this is your first time doing this with a large group, you will be amazed at how many different types of pictures that will come out of this event of the same location.
This event is free and you will be submitting your best picture to a contest to win Scott Kelby’s “Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It” to each leader and winner from each walk location. That winning photo will be submitted to the World Wide Photowalk contest to win a grand prize or 10 runner up prizes. http://worldwidephotowalk.com/prizes/
Abandoned Six Flags in New Orleans
I have a fascination of what the world will be like after people. Most people refer to these cataclysmic events as an “apocalypse”. An event of such epic proportions that it effects everyone’s way of life as we know it. Rather it is from human’s self destructive nature, mother earth or the biblical second coming of god, it seems that it could be a reality we face in our lifetime.
This video was posted on a local automotive forum that I frequent, and it gives an artistic glimpse into a place that was impacted by the domination of nature. Six Flags in New Orleans was shut down in preparation for Hurricane Katrina and never reopened again. It is scheduled to be demolished at the beginning of next year and sold off for scrap. Imagine if something were to happen like this to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
5 Rules to Becoming a Better Email User
EMail has undoubtedly become a very important part of our connected life in this information age. As such, we are challenged with learning the new ways of interacting with others for business or pleasure. Where a conventional letter may have taken nearly 2-3 weeks to receive a written reply from the recipient, we can now receive replies usually within 2-3 minutes. Sometimes, you may not even receive a reply at all.
Through a bit of frustration, sometimes people consistently do not reply to their emails unless they have been confronted or badgered about it. Usually these people only reply to those people they need something from or who give in to the badgering. If you tend to be one of these people, please review the following unwritten email rules.
1. Any response is better than no response – Understandably, Emails are not intended as a replacement for chat or a phone call. However, if you receive an email but cannot tend to working on the task until later, please at least reply with a notice that you received the email and provide an ETA on when you will be able to take a look at said item or provide a reply for that email. This is just common courtesy to insure that the sender does not feel ignored.
I just ran into an issue today, where I sent two co-workers an email last week. At the most I personally give people a max of 2 days before I have to start picking on them for a reply. I saw the guy in the hall, and he told me that he had a follow up flag on it and that he was working on it. How was I supposed to know that? It’s really just a matter of simple communication to insure both parties are on the same page. He simply could have just replied to let me know that he was thinking about me.
2. Reply in a timely fashion – Although, you may follow the first rule but you do it after the acceptable time limit has elapsed. It used to be, the rule was 48 real hours when I first started back in the 90s. However, with the nature of the fast paced world we live in, for business emails consider a respectable 4 business hour window for a response. Start that clock from scratch for the very next day that you are in (say if the email was sent over the weekend), whip a reply out before your lunch hour on Monday morning.
If you are running your own business, use this same rule working with your clients. Clients absolutely love communication, and with internet based businesses you can potentially stretch this out to a 24 non-business hour period. The internet never sleeps but you have to at some point and you cannot be expected to wake up during the middle of the night answering questions to a bunch of drunk people coming home with the itch to shop.
3. Use Auto responders or Out Of Office Assistant – Within a business, if you are out for the day, setup an auto responder to let the other party know so they are not waiting around all day for a reply. Sometimes people will setup an out of office message on their voice mail but not within their email system. Microsoft Outlook with Exchange makes this pretty easy to do.
If you are an entrepreneur, customers are the lifeblood of your organization. You should already have auto responders setup for your customers so adjust those in the event that you decide to take a vacation. Be proactive with your business contacts and let them know you will be unavailable or setup an out of office assistant in your email client as well.
4. Follow Up – The first rule established that you should definitely make an attempt to complete a communication with a first confirmation email. Do not forget to follow up on an email once the task is complete. This may sound like common sense, but it happens quite frequently where I’ll have to go follow up with somebody and they tell me that it is already taken care of.
To really show you care about the party you are working with on the other end, once a task has been completed, schedule a follow up with that person in the future to check in with them to insure that they are still satisfied.
5. Make a System - Develop a system to make this become second nature to you. There are also times that after your initial reply, you will have to provide follow up emails. Some emails systems make this easy by adding a follow up flag to an email or dragging the email to your calendar. The most basic system of course is the fact that if an email is unread, if it merits a reply, provide one right away.
If you have a basic email system, create a folder or a label (like in GMail) “follow up” or “reply” and put those emails in there. At work in Outlook, I use categories and assign a color category to emails I need to follow up on and sort my inbox by categories. In my GMail or Google Apps account, I assign labels. In places like my cell phone where this functionality is limited, I mark the email unread until I can get to a computer to reply.
Becoming a better email user will make you an email superstar and a great communicator in the information age. Following these simple rules will increase trust in your clients and a better team player at work.
Success or Happiness
In this day in age, in America we begin life forced into a mold. Our parents, truly do the best they can to give their children a “better life” than they had to insure success. Our public schools lead us to believe that in order to be successful you must concentrate on being good at working for someone else. Society would lead you to believe that you are not successful unless you have material objects others can only dream of. When you become a parent, you begin the cycle anew.
Parents, who follow the traditions of what they grew up with, employ a vision that sometimes makes up for a lack of what they were able to achieve. Some parents want their kids to go to college because they never got a chance to. Some parents want their children to become great at sports, win beauty pageants or become famous actors. While it is great for parents to expose their children to as many things as possible, forcing them to fulfill things that they want may not be the key to their happiness.
Children are not really concerned about planning for the future, and simply want to live for the moment. Pressuring your kids for tomorrow may give them direction, but could very well instill them with a perpetual feeling of anxiety. Kids just want to have fun, and not worry about being forced into being the next child star athlete or the smartest person in school. It is no wonder that child abuse rates usual peak around the time when report cards are coming out from school. Teachers in school target children who seem to march to the beat of a different drummer due to the way their mind processes information. These children, lead by well meaning parents who want the best for them are forced into doctors offices and doped up on cocaine derivative drugs to cure a fake diseases like “attention deficit disorder”.
As adults, we may still constantly driven by how we were raised. Especially in times of uncertainty, we may tend to fall back on the original path laid out by what our parents designated as right or wrong for us. Basically, it’s like falling back on our life training as a guide on how to live our lives. As an alternative, the bible provides a guide to live a life devoted to god. Which pretty much dictates that you live like a monk. In reality, as long as you have what you need and keep your focus on Christ, what more should you need?
Public schools, which most people in America have attended are government run institutions with liberal agendas. They lead you into believing that in order to be a success that you have to finish school then finish some more school so you can prepare yourself to work for someone else. They do not emphasize on how to be a leader nor even properly budget for personal finances. Our future generations are being setup to be drones to work for others, because they believe that’s what makes you a success.
Society forces you to believe that the bigger the house or the nicer the car you drive, that makes you a success. This belief of conspicuous consumption or “Keeping up with the Joneses” has lead people to an empty shell of stress and to become slaves to a system. After the newness of that big house wears off, its a pain in the butt to stay on top of that pool, cleaning multiple bathrooms, vacuuming and dusting a bunch of extra square footage that you may only use once a year.
Children, just want to spend time with their parents and feel loved. Not everyone wants to work for someone else and needs the support of others when they want to venture out into running their own business. When material possessions begin to own you, that perceived success quickly turns into heart ache. No one can dictate your happiness, and you should not dictate what makes someone else happy. Happiness lies in what your heart, you should not be afraid to explore that and follow your dreams without fear of being judged.
About the photo:
This picture was taken close to a vacant building which sits adjacent to interstate 4 in Altamonte Springs, Florida. This building is owned by a religious broadcasting station that is funding the project with straight cash.
Photography for Kids
Spend some quality time with the kids get them out of the house and out into exploring the world through photography. If you already have the gadgets, taking your kids out on a photo walk is also very cost effective along with many other benefits. You may also be very surprised with the results.
I am really surprised a lot of parents feel they need to spend a lot of money on their kids to keep them happy or to spend time with them. They really feel that it is necessary to go to the movies or blow a bunch of money shopping for more junk that they do not already need. Kids are very easy to make happy and really all they want is time doing whatever it is that you are doing. Taking a kid to the park is a fantastic way to do that, even if they just play on the playground or go on a mini hike.
The only requirement to taking pictures is simply to have a digital camera. Kids are not a fan of waiting to see results, so being able to see the picture on the LCD screen then organized on the computer when you get home is necessary. You may already have a digital camera, they are pretty inexpensive these days. It really doesn’t matter how fancy the camera is, even a pro photographer can take fantastic pictures with a low end point and shoot. Megapixel ratings are just out there to sell cameras. Something in the 2.1 megapixel range is more than enough to start off with for anybody that wants to capture and save memories.
Last weekend, my daughter went with me on an afternoon photo shoot out at Crane’s 
Roost. This is something she wanted to do with me and she already had her agenda set on what she was looking for before she went out there. Which surprised me because when I go out on these walks I draw inspiration as I see it. We ended up going out there for about an hour and half, walked a great amount of distance picking up some shots and she came through like a champ. She went out with my son’s HP point and shoot and did not realize until after transferring to the computer that he had it set for the lowest resolution. The camera was set to hold 4500 images on a 1 gigabyte card! I was able to give her some tips on light and when to use the zoom, but she took the ball and ran with it.
Once we got home we performed our post processing on the images. For her first time out I was truly excited to see what she came up with. She just turned 8 this past weekend, so I had no set expectations other than hoping she had a great time. I provided her with enough instruction to use the camera and let her creative spirit take care of the rest. The images came back straight and pretty well framed for what the camera was capable of. She picked out the ones she liked the most, and we printed them out for her. We managed to pick up a box of ten various sized frames for $0.99 on clearance so we filled them with the images for her to start a collection on her wall with.
Now my daughter has something to look back on for her memories and efforts her first time out with creative photography. For this frugal family, it pretty much only set us back on the cost of gas, toner and a box of $.99 frames. All the while, we managed to get in some great exercise, explore a new place, hone our photography skills and enjoy the world the around us.
About the photos:
All of the pictures in this post that have a time stamp are the pictures my daughter took that afternoon.
Tales of Frugality: Car Starter Repair
After finishing up my delicious roast beef sandwich with my daughter, we get up, go to the car to head back home. I slide and turn the key in the ignition and instead of hearing the flow of exhaust from a running engine it stops cold with a single click. Attempting to turn the key again, I am met with another click.
Someone else recognized my plight and politely attempted to assist me by jumping the car. However, I was already doubtful that this would even work since I had just replaced the battery last month. The guy who was helping me out hooked up the jumper cables to my battery terminals and asked me to crank the engine again. Still, I was met with just a click. By now I had accepted my fate that after 9 years of faithful service, the starter was dead and that my car was going home on the back of a flat bed tow truck.
There we were, my daughter and I rode shotgun in the front of Rodney’s truck being chased by my car which could be seen out of the back window of the truck. We arrived at my house, and my car was gently rolled off the back of the flat bed into my garage where she waited for me to get her back on the road.
In the morning, I woke up early and headed down to the discount auto parts store to pick up a new starter for the car. I came home, jacked up the car and replaced the old starter with the new. I slid the key into the ignition, to my delight I hear the car purring away like a kitten. My car started instantaneously with absolutely no delay! I returned the old part to auto parts store for my core charge and off to work I went. I pretty much had all this done before people get their first cup of coffee finished.
By doing this maintenance myself, I had saved at least in the neighborhood of $140+ in labor and the extra time of dealing with someone else to perform this labor while probing for a ride to get back to the shop once it was done to pick my car up. On top of that, shops like to put an extra charge on the part so a starter that cost me $130 probably would have ended up full retail at $250.
Once you buy a car, learn it well enough to be able to inspect the important items, change the oil and do minor repairs. The more stuff that you can fix on a car, the more you will save. Just about every car on the internet has a forum or enthusiast website dedicated to it that is stocked full of freely available information on how to work on your car. Rather it be changing out a headlight to doing an engine rebuild, someone has done it and put it on the internet. If you are lucky enough, you might even be able to find yourself a service manual freely available on these websites which enhance the definition of the scope of work you want to perform. I have had my car for almost 9 years now and have never had to take it in to get repaired. I have learned how to pretty much do anything I need to do on my car including engine rebuilds off of the wealth of resources on the internet. If you are not comfortable with using the internet, go take a course at your local community college.
The cars with less bells and whistles on it even add to the simplicity of the car repairs since it will have less points of failure. Some of the worst cars you can buy are luxury cars which tend to use bleeding edge technology and bunch of electronics. The more of a base model car that you can get, the better! The point of a car is to get you from point A to point B. For those who think that the car is the point, then they should be willing to invest the time to learn how to work on something they are so passionate about.
If you depend on a car, it is undoubtedly one of the most cost consuming item in your budget. Paying off a car is the greatest way to save money and the next would be maintaining the vehicle yourself. Although, I will add that no matter what even if you are paying the mechanic, it is still cheaper to maintain a car than it is to keep buying new ones. It is worth the investment of your time and patience to learn how to do so.
About the photo:
I took this picture of my Mitsubishi Eclipse overlooking the mountains from my trip up to North Carolina that I took towards the beginning of 2010. I went up there specifically to drive US 129 out of Deal’s Gap on a a segment called “The Dragon”. The Dragon has 318 turns in 11 miles and was a great thrill to drive!
Nikon D90, Nikkor 18-200 vr2
Liferay Enterprise Tomcat 6 Upgrade for Linux
We recently ran into an issue with our Liferay Enterprise install where the version of Tomcat they had bundled in was falling behind security wise. Currently Tomcat 6.0.29 is available and their bundle is currently holding fast at 6.0.18. When we first set out to install Liferay for use with some internet applications, it was my original intent to start off with a separate installation of Tomcat that we maintain and install the Liferay components on top of that. The consultant that was working with us strongly discouraged that so despite my gut feeling I made the mistake of giving in to the our customer’s demands to get the project underway and installed the bundle. Liferay is pretty well integrated with the various bundles that they support so this is not just a simple drop in and replace upgrade of Tomcat. Word from another department integrating it with JBOSS encountered a similar struggle.
At some point in time, if you began using the bundle, you should have unzipped/untar’d it to a given location, for our servers we used /opt. For simplicity sake, I will just state that liferay is rolled out to a directory called “liferay” beneath /opt. Your directory may be “liferay-portal-5.2.3-ee-sp4″ or something to that effect. Beneath /opt/liferay, you should have 4 directories, “deploy”, “ee”, “data” and the tomcat directory encoded by default with the specific version number that was bundled with your install. For the purposes of this update will refer your current directory of the bundled Tomcat install $TOMCAT-OLD and the one you want to upgrade to $TOMCAT-NEW.
Download the latest version of Tomcat 6 here: http://tomcat.apache.org/download-60.cgi
Stop the current running version of Liferay/Tomcat.
Unzip apache-$TOMCAT-NEW to the same directory as your Liferay bundle “/opt/liferay” then rename to the same naming convention (removing “apache-”).
Edit $TOMCAT-NEW/conf/catalina.properties
Search for the line:
common.loader=${catalina.base}/lib,${catalina.base}/lib/*.jar,${catalina.home}/lib,${catalina.home}/lib/*.jarReplace the line with this:
common.loader=${catalina.base}/lib,${catalina.base}/lib/*.jar,${catalina.home}/lib,${catalina.home}/lib/*.jar,${catalina.home}/lib/ext/*.jarEdit $TOMCAT-NEW/conf/server.xml
change each instance of
redirectPort="8443" />
to
redirectPort="8443" URIEncoding="UTF-8" />
(three instances, one of which is commented out)
Copy setenv.sh from $TOMCAT-OLD/bin to $TOMCAT-NEW/bin
Delete all contents of $TOMCAT-NEW/webapps
Copy the contents of $TOMCAT-OLD/webapps to $TOMCAT-NEW/webapps
Create directory $TOMCAT-NEW/lib/ext
Copy the contents of $TOMCAT-OLD/lib/ext to $TOMCAT-NEW/lib/ext
Create directory $TOMCAT-NEW/conf/catalina/localhost
Copy the contents of $TOMCAT-OLD/conf/catalina/localhost to $TOMCAT-NEW/conf/catalina/localhost
Review the $TOMCAT-OLD/bin/catalina.sh, you may have custom environmental variables. This is a sample chunk of what gets moved to $TOMCAT-NEW/bin/catalina.sh
CATALINA_HOME=/opt/liferay/$TOMCAT-NEW/tomcat-6.0.29/ export CATALINA_HOME PATH=/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_18/bin:$PATH export PATH JAVA_HOME=/usr/java/jdk1.6.0_18 export JAVA_HOME
and append with
CATALINA_BASE=/opt/liferay/$TOMCAT-NEW/ export CATALINA_BASE
(Be sure to make sure all instances of $TOMCAT-OLD have been replaced with $TOMCAT-NEW).
Test the new install of tomcat by running
/opt/liferay/$TOMCAT-NEW/bin/catalina.sh
If you are starting Tomcat automatically, copy the new catalina.sh over to /etc/init.d/ and the existing symlinks from the proper run levels will be updated as well.
If you have any issues with this process, please feel free to comment below.
Positive Attitude Equals Positive Results
With a UMP45 in my hand and a M9 by my side, I charge forward into combat head strong along side a virtual team of Marines by my side. When the count down ends, we push forward like a blast of fire licking the far reaches of the playing field shooting wildly into the air at the opposing front which greets us with equal might. Kill after kill we trade exchange barking machine gun fire until the virtual simulation comes to an end. We play this game over the internet every night fulfilling our inner manly desires for camaraderie and accomplishment.
Every so often, we will come to a point in a game where are down 5 points and there is a minute left on the clock. In that time, one of the team member’s communicates, “oh man we lost”. Immediately, it seems that now there is one true fate for the team, and that there is no use in pushing on to finish out strong within the game. Why continue to grip the controller ever so tightly to get in those last few sweet moments of mowing down the other team to score the final points of the game. This member of your team, “Negative Nancy” has sealed the fate for the rest of the team.
I must confess, there was a long period of my life where I was a Negative Nancy. I always though that I was seeing the world for what it really was, and that I was being a realist. In my mind, people who were positive were clueless and hopeless. I used to think that these people were out of touch and wanted to stuff their head in a hole and solely live through bliss by ignorance. However, that realm of thought was just immature on my part.
When I began looking at life through the lens of positive and uplifting thought. A whole new world of opportunities began to unfold. Whatever direction you want to head to, no matter how impossible the odds by going into it with a positive attitude totally changes outcome. I’m not saying that a positive attitude alone will always equal success, but it will get you much further than self defeating negative thoughts.
The most common time this happens, is when you break from the norm of popular thoughts. For example,if you want to leave your high paying job to seek out self employment, you are immediately met with negativity. “How stupid can you be for leaving that nice job to go paint pictures?!”. Another example, someone writes a story from the heart but is met with ridicule from spelling and grammar mistakes instead of focusing on the story itself. Further yet, when your accomplishments are met with negativity because they just were not good enough. In all cases, you must hold a positive attitude and emancipate yourself from other people’s concerns. People that are still in this state are simply no healthy and not good for nurturing your spirit to push forward in life.
Simply put, most people do not want to see you succeed. It is evident in society, that doing the right thing and being successful makes you evil. If you are financially successful, you are in the cross-hairs of other people that want what you have. Which is odd, instead of approaching you to see how you became successful so they can learn, they would rather ostracize you and dismiss you with a random generalization.
The solution, is to surround yourself with other healthy people that are interested in lifting you up just as you are there to lift them up. Every one of us has different dreams or goals that we may not necessarily agree with, but we should be right behind each other providing a support system. We need to be cheerleaders for each other, especially when your chips are down so you can pull out strong and maybe even end up winning the the game when there was 5 points down and less than a minute left on the clock.
There was a time when writing this blog would have been impossible for me. I would have been defeated off the bat with negative thoughts. I tend to be very critical and hard on myself. As a testament to my faith in positive attitude, I have been publishing my photography and my thoughts here even though I am admittedly very intimated by what some people might think. At the end of the day, I am pushing to do something where the Negative Nancy’s will comfortably stay on the side lines in a prison, paralyzed by their own negative thoughts.
In the great words of Yogi Berra, “It ain’t over till it’s over”, stay positive and keep focused on what you are doing until the game is complete. Seek out the positive light in others, lead by example to spread a positive attitude with others.
About the photo:
I took this picture before the sun even began to peek over the horizon in Mount Dora. The myriad of cloud patterns behind the iconic Florida palm just hit me. I experimented with some different shutter speeds to get different effects with the clouds, however this was my favorite.
Nikon D90, nikkor 18 200 vr
Mount Dora, Florida
Normally, when you live somewhere you take for granted the surrounding cities or attractions around you. Driving through the orange groves in the middle of the night to catch sunrise, I drive into the city of Mount Dora. This morning we had planned to go out to an entirely new place to capture inspiration for some new photos and this city delivered.
At the elevation of 148 feet, this city is one of the highest places above sea level which is evident with the amount of hilly terrain that it is set on. The architecture of the buildings adds a certain village charm which has served as a winter retreat since 1887. There was even a lodge which looked like a big doll house set across from a park setup for lawn bowling.
If you are looking for a place to get out to take the spouse or family for the day to take in bite to eat, art or entertainment, this is a great destination!
About the photo:
These are still some of my favorite photos.
I absolutely love this section of stores and the lighting wound around the railing of the second floor cafe. I sat down on the sidewalk across the street and shot this with a tripod.
The yellow and silver topped dollhouse was home to the lodge 248 Free Masons. I am finding these masonic lodges littered all around Florida.
Nikon D90, Nikkor 18 200 vr
Tempting A Path Less Traveled
Waking from a dream by the screaming buzzing of the alarm, I look over and see that my dog is sleeping right through it and the day has already begun with out me. The house is empty and I am ready to do something productive for the day. I get out of bed push the sleep mucus out of my eyes then stand up to stretch. I look down at the clock, and realize that this day has played itself out before. It is time for me to leave my life to go devote my time to an institution that continually reminds me that I am just there to work for a paycheck. Does this sound like a similar rut that you wake to every morning?
It is like I am living the life of Bill Murry in the movie “Groundhog Day”, but like a machine, I am doing what I’m programmed to do. In this day in age, we continue to keep doing this until we are worn out and can no longer keep pushing forward.
When I first took the job, I was excited that I was going to have a very secure place to work to insure the integrity of my family through retirement if I wanted. This excitement comes from the fact that I have a difficult time holding a job for one reason or another for extended periods of time. I do not believe that it is in my DNA to work for other people or be assimilated into the belief that I should depend on just one group to control my fate throughout life. A few years into working this job, I felt that I was due for a promotion, so I opened Tearstone Performance reselling automotive parts to fill in the gap where I was not getting a promotion. I was aggressively going after an increase of pay without having to beg or plead the institution I was working for.
I have learned that with money comes problems and that there may be something to living a simpler life. Most people grow up with dreams of having a nice car someday or having a big house or even being rich. The bigger house you have, the more money it is going to cost to heat that space, repair things when they go wrong and taxes you are going to have to pay on that property. The more expensive car you buy, the higher your insurance, repair costs and in most cases fuel will be also. On top of this, usually it is done by getting even deeper in debt slaving yourself away at lining the pockets of banks with extra money from the interest accrued which could have gone to buy twice to three times as much of what originally paid for to begin with.
The original reason why I was struggling to become more successful and build a better paycheck is to accommodate for all this extra stuff I have been accumulating. I was in debt so bad at one time, I was praying everyday that nothing would ever happen to me while I was working this job. I opened up Tearstone Performance for the soul purpose to help bail us out of the debt we were continually accumulating. I was a slave to work to pay for all my stuff.
Fast forward to today, after working intently from my very good friend Kim Staudenraus, a David Ramsey financial counselor, that debt is dumb. She coached me through pulling myself up by my bootstraps and charging head first into paying off this debt to get my head over water. Today, I have no credit cards and no car payments. I only owe money on my house which using the same principles as before.
So now, being debt free I am evaluating the need to work for someone else at all. The American dream is to focus your life at learning a marketable trade to eventually seek employment for someone else to make them rich so you can buy a bunch of meaningless junk that emotionally degrades your quality of life. I cannot help to feel that if I walked away from this career how many people would scratch their head to say “wow he walked away from a killer job, working at a killer company”. When I am lying on my death bed, I doubt I am going to say “only if I would have worked more”.
Sitting here at this company watching other employees fight tooth and nail to gain the admiration of the management in hopes they will move up in the company. These same people make this company their life by working late and taking time from their family and kids. They are caught in this rat race to pull out the stops to make more money to support a life that they continually grasping for constantly sacrificing time with their growing children they cannot get back. I am punished with reprimand because other people make these sacrifices and I do not. As I get older and begin to understand the big picture, that it is time to truly sacrifice things such as a big house or a new fancy sports car in exchange for focusing on being home and watching my children grow up. It is time to start working on getting out of this rat race and into a place where I can be in the driver’s seat of my own destiny.
I am sure there are many people that may feel guilty about the course their life has taken or may just be unaware of what they are giving up. Perhaps the greed of amassing a bigger income to have nicer things forces both parents to work while the kids fend for themselves at home. Even those who do not have kids, sacrifice their relationships to focus on their own careers instead of each other. This country in general has it’s priorities screwed up and admittedly I am no exception for falling in the trap.
The path less traveled would constitute securing a means of self employment which would give the flexibility of time without having someone manage my time for me. It would be nice to be able to go to my daughter’s open house at school or to a doctors appointment without having to be chastised by management about creating a pattern or taking too much time out of work on taking care of personal matters.
After the long day is done, it is time to go home. Within that time, the family is preparing for tomorrow to do it all over again.
Live simple, live happy.
About the photo:
This was a segment of track that lays down next to Orange Avenue in downtown Orlando.
Nikon D90, Nikkor 18 200 mm vr2
